Michael McDermott?

Tuesday, October 29, 2002 War and peace

The New York Times downplayed the DC antiwar march, noting vaguely that "thousands of protesters marched through Washington's streets," while the Washington Post gave a more accurate accounting of 100,000 Americans from all walks of life coming together to oppose the Administration's march to war. I'm not sure how the former fits into the conspiratorial worldview of the anti-Raines crowd, but the latter paper presumably had no choice but to present a more accurate picture, given that many of its readers would have actually witnessed the event firsthand.

And in an article about the march in yesterday's Salon, Michelle Goldberg writes:

What (the peace movement) doesn't appear to have is a powerful affirmative message to match its scathing critique of American foreign policy. If war isn't the answer, what is? "No Justice, No Peace, U.S. Out of the Middle East" doesn't cut it, unless we intend to abandon the Kurds to Saddam.

The phrasing of the question puts the onus on those who oppose war to come up with a suitable alternative. It declares that we must have an answer, a presupposition which automatically hands the advantage to those who are willing to pretend that they do have an answer: bomb Iraq. Or, excuse me, Saddam--this isn't a war with Iraq, it's a war with Saddam, as the latest facile piece of prowar reasoning would have it. And never mind the unfortunate civilians who happen to be standing on the wrong streetcorner when the daisy cutters start falling out of the sky, the human beings whose only crime was to have been born into the wrong society. Tough luck, champ. Sorry about your wife, your infant son. That's the breaks. We had to do something--you just got in the way.

Except, of course, that our moral outrage concerning the Kurds is a little late--about fourteen years late, actually. As Amnesty International reports:

The human rights situation in Iraq is being invoked with unusual frequency by some western political leaders to justify military action. This selective attention to human rights is nothing but a cold and calculated manipulation of the work of human rights activists. Let us not forget that these same governments turned a blind eye to Amnesty International's reports of widespread human rights violations in Iraq before the Gulf War. They remained silent when thousands unarmed Kurdish civilians were killed in Halabja in 1988.

Amnesty is, incidentally, launching a campaign against widespread human rights abuses in the Russian Federation. Torture is routine in police stations, conditions in prisons are barbaric, and in Chechnya, "Russian forces have reportedly attacked civilians, and carried out disappearances, extrajudicial executions, rape and other torture, without fear of punishment." And of course, they've got more than a few weapons of mass destruction. Shouldn't we declare war on Russia, pronto? Are you suggesting that we do nothing?

And then there's North Korea, a brutal dictatorship with weapons of mass destruction. Not to mention our close friend and ally Egypt, where 63 year old Saad Ibrahim has just been sentenced to seven years hard labor, for the crime of promoting democracy by teaching Egyptians how to vote and monitor elections. And Pakistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia--the list goes on and on. Don't you interventionists care about the suffering and oppressed peoples of those countries? Shouldn't we send in the troops, as soon as possible?

Of course, we're not just ignoring the abuses of those regimes--we're actively aiding them. As Jim Hightower notes:

Bush is not merely befriending thuggish dictators, he's arming them! He has quietly lifted restrictions banning U.S. arms and other military resources from being sold or given to these unsavory and unstable regimes. In the past year the Bushites have dumped some $3.5 billion-worth of military hardware and support into explosive regions and into the hands of evildoers who'll use the weaponry to prop-up their own dictatorships. This includes equipment for Yemen's special dictator, Hellfire missiles for Kuwait's repressive monarchy, and surveillance equipment for Kyrgyzstan, as well as arms shipments to governments fighting their own people in Azerbaijan, Colombia, Ethiopia, and the Philippines.

Thirty-two of the regimes getting U.S. firepower have been denounced by Bush's own state department for having "poor" or worse human rights records, and these arms will only make life more miserable for the people.

***

So why are we so focused on Iraq, when there are abuses and outrages and oppression all over the world? What sets Iraq apart, and necessitates a commitment of billions of dollars and untold lives?

Well, gosh, this isn't rocket science, is it?

Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserves, and U.S. oil companies are already salivating at the prospect of divvying them up. A study sponsored by Council of Foreign Relations (which I mentioned a few posts back, and can be read in PDF format here) easily refutes the canard that since most U.S. oil comes from sources other than the Middle East, this war can't possibly be about something as mundane as oil, noting that "The global nature of oil trade and pricing means that it matters little if Gulf oil flows to Asia or the United States. Middle East Gulf pricing and supply trends will affect energy costs around the globe regardless."

It's also worth noting that Ahmed Chalabi, the "silk-suited, Rolex-wearing" London-based leader of the Iraqi National Congress--and Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle's puppet-leader-of-choice for a conquered Iraq--is not only busily drawing up plans to parcel out Iraq's oil to U.S. multinationals, but is also "spinning scenarios about dismantling Saudi Arabia, seizing its oil and collapsing the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)." (The American Prospect has a long article on this guy, and it's well worth reading.)

It's nice to imagine that this buildup to war is motivated by nothing other than our concern for the Kurdish people, just like it's nice to imagine that our little intervention in Afghanistan was about nothing more than our concern for the poor oppressed women of that country--especially given that our stated goals, destroying al Qaeda and capturing Osama bin Laden, were not realized. But in the case of Afghanistan, even if your recollection of recent history is so fundamentally shaky that you are able to accept the revisionist version of events at face value, things aren't looking so good. Also on Salon yesterday (in the Premium section, unfortunately) was an article by Phillip Robertson which is also well worth reading:

The seeds of the current government's destruction were sown by the American-backed victory over the Taliban, and nourished by the Bush administration's failure to devote the necessary resources to rebuilding Afghanistan. Before the bombing ever started, those knowledgeable about Afghanistan warned that massive postwar reconstruction would be necessary to prevent the nation from once again becoming a terrorist breeding ground. They warned that ancient ethnic and tribal tensions, in particular between Tajiks and Pashtuns, could quickly rage out of control. All of their grim predictions of postwar anarchy are coming true -- and America is doing nothing.

The point is, war is always subject to the law of unintended consequences, and the onus must always be on those who desire war to justify its need. And, for god's sake, to learn from the lessons of the past. Remember what happened after we installed the Shah of Iran? You know, that business with the fundamentalist Islamic uprising, which pretty much leads in a straight line to the current jihad against the West? Gosh, that one worked out well, didn't it?

Do I have all the answers to the world's problems? No, I do not. And neither do you. But I know when I'm being treated like a mushroom--i.e., kept in the dark and fed a steady diet of bullshit--and it's utterly clear that that's what's happening now. We must set the bar a hell of a lot higher before we instigate a bloodbath whose outcome is extraordinarily uncertain--and right now, that bar seems to be about two inches off the ground.

posted by Tom Tomorrow at 11

How do YOU respond?

Holy crap that was long! Nice "document dump".

First of all, presenting an op ed piece from "Salon" and quoting Jim Hightower (unfortunately a fellow Texan) would be like me offering up articles from "Newsmax" and Rush Limbaugh. Even if their arguments were based mostly on facts, they would be so partisan and so slanted as to be unusable as a persuasive device to an opposing viewpoint.

But hey, I'll play ball...........

(I forgot to "quote" your post, so if I leave something out you want answers to, remind me.)

I'm just going to start.....(not in any chronological order)

The Gulf War, as we all know, was about the liberation of Kuwait. That's what the various UN resolutions mandated and that's what was done. It's easy to "Monday morning quarterback" the situation and claim that we should have taken out Saddam when we had the chance etc., etc., etc. The fact is that if we had tried to roll our tanks into Baghdad, the shrill cry from the UN and various Arab states would have been enough to make your ears bleed. There would have been NO Anglo-Arab coalition if one of the stated goals was deposing one of "their" guys.

The situation is now somewhat different. The case has been made tying Saddam to Al-Que'ada. Why then, you may ask, have the French and Russian not gotten on board with UN resolutions? Why won't Saudi Arabia let us use their air bases to launch attacks from (even though they spend millions on TV advertising saying we've always been best buds)?

The French are being the French. Remember when we wanted to deal a little pay back to Libya back in the '80's? Our "friends" the French refused to let us use their air space and we had to fly ten thousand miles out of our way.

The Russians are owed 10 BILLION dollars by Iraq for arms. They'd like to see their money.

Saudi Arabia? 12 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Bin Laden is/was a Saudi national. The Saudi royals enjoy breathing. Connect the dots.

"No War for Oil!" "Hell no, we won't go!" Blah, blah, blah. The arguments being made about "big oil" (as opposed to "big media", "big labor", and "big trial lawyers") are as bankrupt and inoperable today as they were in 1990. Oil prices were DEPRESSED for four years after the Gulf War. I don't see American oil companies running roughshod ove the Iraqi oil industry.

The Kurds. The cursed Kurds. Their own countrymen gas them with chemical weapons and their nearest Arab neighbor, Turkey, wants NO part of them. Turkey, being an important ally, may have asked/told us, "Do you want to NOT arm those guys?" They envision armed Kurds coming over their border.

"Dismantle" Saudi Arabia?!?!?!?

It was not confirmed that North Korea had nukes until a week or so ago. Give a brother a couple of days to ramp up.

I'm sure I've left out many important issues. However, let's chew on this awhile.

Michael

The guys that run "Diableros" kebab shop on Pitt St are Kurds. Lovely fellas. They were granted asylum 5 years ago. Work their balls off till 5AM every morning putting up with pissed Glaswegians.

I have not had the pleasure of meeting any Kurds. However, many immigrants from Viet Nam lived in the community where I grew up. Their children, for the most part, excelled in school and they created thriving businesses from nothing.

Loads of Vietnamese in Czechoslovakia when I spent that summer there. No other obvious immigrants. Which I found a bit odd.

first, i'd like to address michael's comments about the kurds. he says that turkey is the kurds 'nearest arab neighbour'. actually, kurdistan straddles iran, iraq and turkey. and turkey is NOT an ARAB country! (neither is iran. the kurds aren't arabs either.) he also says that the turks want nothing to do with them. this may be their ideal, but in fact this is far from the truth. i wrote my BA thesis on the war between turkey and the turkish kurds. the turks use the same air base to bomb the turkish kurds that the americans use to patrol the northern no-fly zone in iraq...in order to PROTECT the iraqi kurds! (incirlik, in eastern turkey) the turkish kurds have been fighting a war of armed resistance against the turkish state for decades. so, turkey already has plenty of armed kurds INSIDE its borders! (re. michael's statement, 'they envision armed kurds coming over their border.) the turkish government has been as brutal against its kurds as saddam hussein has been against his. however, the U.S. has been unusually quiet about this.... the UN and the EU, on the other hand, have not.

as a student of middle eastern politics and terrorism for five years (as a masters' and PhD student), studying under two of the top middle eastern terrorism experts in the world, including dr. bruce hoffman (now a vice president at the RAND corporation in washington, d.c.), i have to put in my two cents on this topic. i have also lived and traveled extensively in the region. i can tell you from my studies, and from speaking to other terrorism experts, members of the state department, and members of the foreign service who have been stationed in saudi arabia that the case has NOT been made linking iraq to al-qaeda, and never will. in fact, the latter is true. here are the facts:

several years ago, 400 al-qaeda members were active in iraq. however, they came into iraq from iran, into the NORTHERN NO-FLY ZONE, which is administered by the U.S.! so, saddam hussein had no control over whether or not these al-qaeda members operated in this part of iraq. eventually, most of these al-qaeda members were killed by the local kurds; the rest fled over the border, back into iran.

as for iraq's support for terrorism, this has never been disputed. however, iraq has NEVER supported al-qaeda. the only 'evidence', the allegation that an iraqi government minister and a high-ranking al-qaeda member met in the czech republic, was later retracted as being false. here is who iraq HAS supported, NEITHER of them islamist:

1. abu nidal. during the 1970s and 1980s, iraq supported the abu nidal organization's terrorist activities. however, abu nidal was assassinated several months ago and his organization has, by all accounts, disbanded.

2. abu abbas. abu abbas was the orchestrator of the hijacking of the 'achille lauro' cruise ship in the 1980s. abu abbas has been inactive for many years.

saddam hussein is not the 'world's number one supporter of terrorism' as i heard rudolph giuliani state a few weeks ago. anybody who studies terrorism knows that both iran and syria give more money to terrorist organizations every year than iraq.

as for saddam hussein trying to obtain uranium from africa, as george bush claimed in an october 7 speech, there is only one country in africa capable of producing, and selling, uranium: south africa. when asked about this allegation, the south african government were completely confused. they insisted that they have never even been approched by the iraqis about buying uranium.

the issue boils down to the fact that saddam hussein is a ba'athist. the ba'ath party is the arab nationalist party, which exists throughout the arab world. throughout their history, the arab nationalists have pushed out islamists and refused to worked with them. traditionally, the ba'athists see islamists as a threat to their (usually) autocratic methods of rule, as an islamic revolution would inevitably result in the removal of the ba'athist leader from power. the terrorist organizations saddam hussein worked with had leftist leanings, were pro-palestinian, and were not islamists. none of them made any anti-american overtures--they were more concerned with anti-israeli activities.

in fact, iraq is one of the most socially liberal countries in the middle east: alcohol is readily available throughout the country, as are western movies and television shows (although western news is forbidden). these things are anathema to al-qaeda. while syria (another ba'athist-run state) supports hez'bollah (an islamist-based organization), hez'bollah is infinitely more moderate than al-qaeda. its interpretation of the qu'ran is nowhere near as strict as al-qaeda's (men do not need to wear beards, women have many more rights, etc.)--hence it is more likely to work with an arab nationalist government. also, syria is more socially conservative than iraq.

in fact, the removal of saddam hussein would provide an excellent opportunity for osama bin laden. iraq is a factionalized country. as a strict dictator, saddam hussein has quashed dissent amongst the many religious and cultural factions living within his territory. without him, it's more than likely that there would be a civil war. this war would provide al-qaeda an opportunity to create an ultra-orthodox islamist state, as the taliban did in afghanistan. the bush administration seeks to plant a U.S.-led military regime in power after saddam is toppled. the consequence of this? angering the leaders of the region. does the US really want a democracy in iraq? NO! why? because none of its allies in the region are democracies. destabilizing the region and introducing a new form of government is the last thing america wants or needs. the loss of america's allies could result in hostile democracies, hostile theocracies or hostile oligarchies. it would be too much of a gamble.

so, where does the defense department get its 'intelligence' from? from the iraqi national congress, an anti-saddam splinter group. getting intelligence from a biased organization with a vested interest in overthrowing a government is bad politics and bad intellegence-gathering. this is widely known in the intelligence community. good intelligence MUST be gathered without bias and with objectivity. otherwise it cannot be trusted. this is why the CIA and the defense department are arguing over what intelligence souces to believe. while CIA intelligence is not infallible, common sense and historical evidence suggest that the CIA intelligence is the most reliable.

in conclusion: yes, saddam hussein is a tyrant. yes, he has used nerve gas against his own people. as an internationalist, i believe that human beings cannot sit back and allow leaders to treat their people in this manner, even if they are not citizens of the same nations as we are. however, creating 'facts' which are based on innuendo and unreliable sources, and disseminating them as truth in order to gain support for a war, is the lowest of the low. to remove saddam hussein now would be disastrous and would play into osama bin laden's hands.

as iraq is a member of the IAEA it is not unacceptable to require them to comply with weapons inspections. this is the best avenue to take at the moment. there are many other countries which have violated more UN resolutions than iraq, iraq has a weak army (it was strongest in the 1980s when the US was supporting saddam hussein) and it does not support al-qaeda. therefore, an invasion would be dangerous, unnecessary and a waste of american and innocent iraqi lives.

AW,

You make interesting, reasoned arguments. Just a few things, however:

I said that Turkey was the Kurds nearest Arab, not "armed" neighbor.

As far as there being no other democracies in the region friendly to thre US, I think there is this tiny little county called Israel that enjoys a democractic republic as we do. :)

re-read my post. you'll notice that i changed the post and commented on calling turkey an 'arab' country (not an armed country)! IT IS NOT AN ARAB COUNTRY!

and as for israel being a democracy...there is actually a debate (which includes israelis!) over whether or not israel can be a 'jewish state' and a 'democracy' at the same time, as this seems to be an oxymoron (being a jewish state, by definition, represents exclusivity, while democracy represents inclusivity). when i lived in israel, i had an interesting discussion with professor ilan pappe of haifa university about this. he does not believe that israel can be both a jewish state AND a democracy. this viewpoint is growing in popularity.

also, if you were to travel to the west bank or gaza strip, or even speak to israeli arabs, you will see that israel is a democracy ONLY on the surface.

I see that we are quick with the edit function! Whew, that was fast.

Define "Arab" for the class, please.

I realize that Turkey's form of government is secular, but the population is 99.8 % Sunni Muslim.

Originally posted by AgentWood re-read my post. you'll notice that i changed the post and commented on calling turkey an 'arab' country (not an armed country)! IT IS NOT AN ARAB COUNTRY!and as for israel being a democracy...there is actually a debate (which includes israelis!) over whether or not israel can be a 'jewish state' and a 'democracy' at the same time, as this seems to be an oxymoron (being a jewish state, by definition, represents exclusivity, while democracy represents inclusivity). when i lived in israel, i had an interesting discussion with professor ilan pappe of haifa university about this. he does not believe that israel can be both a jewish state AND a democracy. this viewpoint is growing in popularity.also, if you were to travel to the west bank or gaza strip, or even speak to israeli arabs, you will see that israel is a democracy ONLY on the surface.

Just a few facts on Israel:

Legal system:

mixture of English common law, British Mandate regulations, and, in personal matters, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim legal systems; in December 1985, Israel informed the UN Secretariat that it would no longer accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction

Suffrage:

18 years of age; universal

Executive branch:

chief of state: President Moshe KATSAV (since 31 July 2000) elections: president elected by the Knesset for a five-year term; election last held 31 July 1999 (next to be held NA July 2003); prime minister elected by popular vote for a four-year term; election last held 6 February 2001 (next to be held NA November 2003); note - in March 1992, the Knesset approved legislation, effective in 1996, which allowed for the direct election of the prime minister, but in 2001 the Knesset voted to restore the previous method under which the legislators will choose the next prime minister after the next legislative elections in 2003 head of government: Prime Minister Ariel SHARON (since 7 March 2001) cabinet: Cabinet selected by prime minister and approved by the Knesset election results: Moshe KATSAV elected president by the 120-member Knesset with a total of 60 votes, other candidate, Shimon PERES, received 57 votes (there were three abstentions); Ariel SHARON elected prime minister; percent of vote - Ariel SHARON 62.5%, Ehud BARAK 37.4%; note - after the next legislative elections scheduled for 2003, the prime minister will be elected by the Knesset

Legislative branch:

unicameral Knesset or parliament (120 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms) elections: last held 17 May 1999 (next to be held NA November 2003) election results: percent of vote by party - One Israel 20.2%, Likud Party 14.1%, Shas 13%, Meretz 7.6%, Yisra'el Ba'Aliya 5.1%, Shinui 5%, Center Party 5%, National Religious Party 4.2%, United Torah Judaism 3.7%, United Arab List 3.4%, National Union 3%, Hadash 2.6%, Yisra'el Beiteinu 2.6%, Balad 1.9%, One Nation 1.9%, Democratic Movement NA (party formed after election, members elected under Yisra'el Ba'Aliya list); seats by party - One Israel 24, Likud Party 19, Shas 17, MERETZ 10, Yisra'el Ba'Aliya 4, Shinui 6, Center Party 5, National Religious Party 5, United Torah Judaism 5, United Arab List 5, National Union 3, Hadash 3, Yisra'el Beiteinu 4, Democratic Movement 2 (party formed after election, members elected under Yisra'el Ba'Aliya list), Balad 2, One Nation 2

Judicial branch:

Supreme Court (justices appointed for life by the president)

Political parties and leaders:

Balad or National Democratic Alliance [Azmi BISHARA]; Center Party [Dan MERIDOR]; Democratic Movement [Roman BRONFMAN]; Gesher [David LEVI]; Hadash [Muhammad BARAKA]; Labor Party [Binyamin BEN-ELIEZER]; Likud Party [Ariel SHARON]; Meretz [Yossi SARID]; National Religious Party [Yitzhak LEVY]; National Union [Benyamin ELON] (includes Herut, Tekuma, and Moledet); One Israel [Ra'anan COHEN]; One Nation [Amir PERETZ]; Shas [Eliyahu YISHAI]; Shinui [Tommy LAPID]; United Arab List [Abd al-Malik DAHAMSHAH]; United Torah Judaism [Meir PORUSH]; Yisra'el Ba'Aliya [Natan SHARANSKY]; Yisra'el Beiteinu [Avigdor LIEBERMAN]

Political pressure groups and leaders:

Israeli nationalists advocating Jewish settlement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip; Peace Now supports territorial concessions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; Yesha (settler) Council promotes settler interests and opposes territorial compromise; B'Tselem monitors human rights abuses

'arab' and 'muslim' are not interchangeable terms. 'arab' is both a linguistic and ethnic definition. 'muslim' is a follower of the islamic religion. the turks are related, ethnically and linguistically, to the armenians, georgians and other 'caucasian' people. the iranians are farsi (formerly called persian), and the kurds are ethnically and linguistically related to them. in fact, if you call an iranian, kurd or turk 'arab' they will be terribly offended. iranians, for example, consider themselves culturally superior to arabs (in the same way that, say, the french consider themselves culturally superior to, oh, everyone). the turks have forbidden the kurds from speaking their language in turkey, or from using it in any way.

while they are all muslim (i.e. they practice the same religion), they are extremely different in their cultural practices and their ethnic heritages. the turkish, kurdish and farsi languages are very different from the arabic language and are not related to it. the arab peoples originated in the arabian peninsula, and their language spread throughout what is now known as the 'arab world', which DOES NOT include iran, turkey and kurdistan. (or afghanistan, for that matter.)

the following nations are members of the arab league, as they have predominantly arab-speaking populations: algeria, bahrain, comoros, djibouti, egypt, iraq, jordan, kuwait, lebanon, libya, mauritania, morocco, oman, (palestine), qatar, saudi arabia, somalia, sudan, syria, tunisia, united arab emirates and yemen. (chad also has a predominantly arab-speaking population, but is not a member of the arab league.) technically, ethnic arabs are those originatic from the arabian peninsula. they are semitic people, like the jews. however, nowadays, one is usually considered an 'arab' if they hail from a predominantly arab-speaking country. ONLY those originating from the above countries are arabs. (although somalis, sudanese, chadis, djiboutis, mauritanians and comorosis are usually not referred to as 'arabs' as they are often considered part of other ethnic groups, e.g. nubians, etc.)

in essence, calling a turk an arab would be like calling a pole a spaniard, simply because they are both catholic.

see above for the difference between 'arab' and 'muslim'.

my primary area of study in the middle east is the israeli/palestinian conflict. does your source mention that:

a)there is no intermarriage between religion in israel. ANY religion. to intermarry, a couple must go to cyprus. even amongst jews, to have a reform or conservative jewish wedding is not allowed. only orthodox weddings are allowed. less than 10% of the jewish population is orthodox.

b)muslims are forbidden from serving in the israeli defense forces (IDF) (except for the small druze population). and, yes, some would like to. because there is universal conscription amongst jews (unless one goes to yeshiva) many high-paying jobs are only achieved through nepotistic means, i.e. 'who one knows through the IDF'. hence, most arabs are shut out of this process automatically.

c)two (jewish) high-ranking officials in the jerusalem city council resigned in the early-1990s because the city council was dividing city funds as followed: 2/3 to west jerusalem (the jewish part), 1/3 to east jerusalem (the palestinian part), even though the population division is about 50/50. plus, any requests for road improvements, sewage improvements, etc. for east jerusalem often took more than one year to even be SEEN by the city council, if at all, while west jerusalem improvements were looked at and passed almost immediately. the two men were so disturbed by these practices that they wrote a book about this injustice. if you go to jerusalem, the diference is glaring.

d)non-jews (even citizens of israel) can only live on approximately 5% of the land. the rest is designated for jews only.

e)there are millions of people living in the west bank and gaza strip with no citizenship--they belong to no country. these palestinians have no due process of law in israeli courts. they can be held for months without being charged or without being allowed legal counsel. they do not have to be told why they are being held. sometimes they are released after months and months of captivity without ever having been charged or even having been accused of a crime. several years ago, an american of palestinian descent was held under these conditions while visiting relatives in the west bank. he had given money to a foundation which distributes food in refugee camps and which was mistakenly identified as being a front for terrorism. once the foundation was cleared, the man was released--not after he had been tortured for days and repeatedly denied access to the american consulate. he is suing the state of israel. his story was eventually recounted on 20/20. there is a bill currently under review in the knesset which will allow torture to be used as a legal method of obtaining confessions and information from palestinians (not from jews), even though it is widely accepted that most people will say anything under torture to stop the pain.

personal stories:

when i lived in tel aviv i lived in a youth hostel. there were three israeli arabs living there (from jerusalem) because they were doing contract work in tel aviv. our hostel was the ONLY hostel in tel aviv which allowed israel arabs to stay there.

several of my friends went to a nightclub in jerusalem. one of them was an israeli arab. he was denied admission because, as the doorman said, they did 'not let filth like that in the nightclub.' he shrugged it off, saying these things happened to him all the time.